Current Urban Studies, 2015, 3, 71-81 Published Online June 2015 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/cus http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/cus.2015.32007 Resettling Displaced Residents from Regularised Informal Settlements in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania: Challenges Faced by House Owners D. L. Magembe-Mushi, J. M. Lupala Ardhi University, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Email: [email protected] Received 26 March 2015; accepted 17 May 2015; published 21 May 2015 Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Regularisation is a process that attempts to restructure informal and unauthorised settlements in terms of physical, legal, official and administrative set ups of land management as well as improv- ing the living condition of its dwellers. In Dar-es-Salaam city about, 80 per cent of its residents live in informal settlements. These settlements lack the basic services of water supply, access roads, waste water management and storm water drainage systems. Regularisation has been practiced in order to provide these basic services. This paper focuses on physical regularisation which was im- plemented through Community Infrastructure Upgrading Project (CIUP) within sixteen settle- ments in Dar-es-Salaam City. Through explorative research using case study strategy, displaced residents were traced. For those who were found an in-depth interview was conducted and narra- tions of their experience before during and after displacement and resettlement were obtained. The paper analyses the process of displacement and resettlement caused by regularisation through the country’s policy and legal frameworks. It also used the justice and collaborative theories in re- flecting the processes in the affected settlements. Through narrations of individual displaced resi- dents and reflections from theories and legal frameworks, a number of challenges were identified and discussed. Keywords Regularisation, Upgrading, Displaced Residents, Resettlement, Displacement How to cite this paper: Magembe-Mushi, D. L., & Lupala, J. M. (2015). Resettling Displaced Residents from Regularised In- formal Settlements in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania: Challenges Faced by House Owners. Current Urban Studies, 3, 71-81. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/cus.2015.32007 D. L. Magembe-Mushi, J. M. Lupala 1. Introduction Regularization has been defined as a planned process of physical restructuring of informal and unauthorized set- tlements into legal, official and administrative structures of land management. The process consists of two main approaches: judicial/tenure regularization and physical regularization, also known as upgrading (Mertins, 1998; Lamba, 2005). Regularisation as a new paradigm in addressing issues in informal settlements has become an accepted way of solving problems associated with unplanned settlements in most African, Asian and Latin American cities. In- ternational organisations, such as United Nations Development Program (UNDP), UN-Habitat and the World Bank, had substantiated that. Since 1960s, cities in developing countries have faced an unprecedented rate of urbanisation and increasing poverty which had resulted into uncontrolled proliferation of slums within un- planned and under-serviced neighbourhoods (Durand-Lasserve, 2006). These slums are occupied by dwelling units without any legal recognition or rights to land. They lack the most basic social amenities, such as clean water supply, sanitation, waste collection and health facilities. Consequently, these slums are exposed to dis- eases and natural disasters (World Bank, 2001). Although the views of many governments in developing countries over informal settlements were largely negative, in the past three decades these views have changed quite dramatically. Informal settlements are no longer seen by public authorities as a transitory phenomenon, rather as permanent and lasting fact of life. Inte- gration of informal settlements has become a step towards a new form of managing urban development (World Bank, 2001). This is why regularisation is considered as a workable strategy of improving the living condition of such settlements and incorporating them into urban development strategies. Regularisation has been also viewed as a strategy to achieve inclusivity of marginalised poor communities within city social-economic development (ibid). Physical regularisation which is the focus of this paper, involves the spatial reorganisation of informal settle- ments. The process allows for the material creation and/or improvement of physical infrastructure, including dwelling structures; basic urban services such as access roads, water, sanitation facilities; social amenities like schools and health facilities. In this approach, it is difficult to avoid some population displacement in any city when the government seeks to improve provision of infrastructure in settlements (Patel, 2002). The process usu- ally starts with the acquisition of land which will be used for infrastructure provision. In informal settlements the availability of unoccupied pieces of land is very rare. In order for the community to be provided with basic in- frastructure and other social amenities, a number of houses or part of these houses have to be demolished to pave way for such an implementation. Since the whole process of regularization has to be done in a participatory approach, it is assumed that the community in collaboration with the government or its agent will find alterna- tive sites for resettlement of the affected residents. Various researches have advocated relocation to be within or very close to the settlement in order to make affected residents benefit from the regularisation process. This is attributed to the aim of upgrading which is to improve health and secure living environment for the residents of the settlement with minimal displacement (World Bank, 2001). 2. Regularisation in Tanzania Tanzania is one of the countries in the Sub-Saharan region with the highest proportion of its urban residents liv- ing in informal or unplanned settlements. Between 50 percent and 80 percent of its urban population live in such settlements. Dar-es-Salaam in particular, over 70 percent of the estimated 3 million inhabitants lives in un- planned settlements (URT, 2004). Informal housing comprises more than 50 percent of the existing urban hous- ing stock (Kombe, 2005). Efforts in dealing with informal settlements started early after independence in 1960s following rapid influx of rural population into urban centres. In dealing with such a situation of informal settlements the government adopted the strategy of slum clearance. The idea of this strategy was to clear away the city squatters, who were considered as “eyesore” to the cityscape (Ndezi, 2009). Due to rapid population growth, the government failed to provide housing services to cope up with that situation. With increasing poverty in the rural and urban areas, the administrative and financial capability of the state to cope with effective demand for housing has been di- minishing. Thus the potential to provide subsidised rental housing and serviced plots or expand opportunities for employment and income generation commensurate with population growth has declined (Kombe, 2005). It is common that the majority of the migrants seek accommodation in informal settlements. From 1972; the 72 D. L. Magembe-Mushi, J. M. Lupala government adopted the upgrading approach to take advantage of the housing stock developed by people. In that case, the Government of Tanzania adopted a second approach known as Site and Services and Squatter Upgrad- ing program. This strategy stipulated the recognition of squatter settlements as part and parcel of urban fabrics. The essence was to legalise landholding by giving titles, thus providing a minimum level of social and economic infrastructure and services in squatter settlements (URT, 2000). While the program had positive impact on housing delivery and urban improvements where it was implemented, it as well displaced residents from the up- graded settlements. These residents were resettled in the provided new sites which were planned and serviced. However, many of the planned plots ended up in the hands of high-income people while the targeted beneficiar- ies were supposed to be low-income earners (Kironde, 1992). From the 1990s, regularisation approach got prominence essentially because it incorporated tenure improve- ment to the residents. The period between 1986 and early 1990s observed a stall in informal settlements devel- opment. Due to lack of maintenance, most of the infrastructure provided under the squatter upgrading and sites and services programme deteriorated beyond repair. New informal settlements emerged with little or no inter- vention from the government. As this trend intensified the demand for services and public utilities increased as well. Many residents from these settlements pursued their needs from community based initiated upgrading pro- jects. It was from these community based initiatives the government adopted community infrastructure program (CIP) in 1993, and extended further under the Community Infrastructure Upgrading Programme (CIUP) in 2002. In these programmes more than 30 informal settlements were earmarked for upgrading in Dar-es-Salaam with emphasis on community participation in the upgrading process. Regularisation as an approach in upgrading also came into